“As you wish, my lady,” he said with narrowed eyes.
A footman pulled out a chair at the table beneath a window. Outside, the sky was a muted gray, and the garden beyond was obscured by fog. Mr. Hobbs carried her plate for her, and Catherine took a seat. She kept her head down to avoid the woman in white who continued to hover around her.The visions never lingered. They were never this insistent. What had changed? Was she getting worse? Hands in her lap, Catherine tugged at the hem of her sleeve hard enough to rip. She’d come this far; she wouldn’t go back. Not to Elk Grove, not to the room. If she were to be Lady Thornton, she had to act like it.
Catherine picked up her fork off the table and clenched it so hard the metal bit into her hand. She stabbed her soft-boiled egg, and the yellow yolk bled across the blue pattern of the china. The woman in white stood in the center of the table, the white table cloth severing her torso as she leaned in, so they were nose to nose.
“He is coming for you next. Leave while you can,” the woman in white said.
Catherine set her fork back down and took a long shuddering breath, and closed her eyes.Get through breakfast. Greet her husband. Be the perfect wife. The footman and Mr. Hobbs hovered at the edge of the room, staring blank-eyed forward. How could anyone eat like this?
The large, oaken doors to the morning room swung open with a groan. Catherine’s head shot up. Blessedly the ghost was gone at last. Mrs. Morgan, the housekeeper, strode into the room, one hand clutching the ring of keys at her hip. Catherine sat up straighter in her chair. Mrs. Morgan’s high-collared black gown and her severe expression reminded her of a cruel nurse back at Elk Grove who struck patients who behaved badly.
“Lady Thornton, good morning. I hope everything is to your liking,” Mrs. Morgan said briskly.
“It is, thank you,” Catherine said and bit her bottom lip.
“Do you have anything I can help you with?”
Catherine wrung her hands together. “When will Lord Thornton be joining me?”
“His lordship takes breakfast in his study.”
“Oh.”
“The former Lady Thornton took her breakfast in bed,” Mrs. Morgan said with a sniff.
Catherine blushed. She had assumed even someone as high born as Lord Thornton would share his morning meal with his family. When she’d been a girl, she had loved eating with Mama and Papa and enjoyed talking about their plans for the day. But it seemed she had a lot to learn about how to be a lady, if she wanted to keep her husband happy.
“Then tomorrow, I suppose I shall as well.”
“As you wish, my lady,” Mrs. Morgan said, her lips curling. “His lordship sent me to tell you that he ‘apologizes for not joining you on your first day at Thornwood Abbey but he hopes you be at your leisure and he will see you tonight for the dinner party.’”
The dinner party. She’d almost forgotten. Lord Thornton insisted on having some friends from the neighborhood over to make introductions. After everything he’d done for her and her family, how could she refuse him anything? Even if crowds made her uncomfortable, she must endure it. When she was a girl, the symptoms were at their worst when Mama hosted parties. Tonight she would need to take extra care as to not make a scene. The last thing she wanted was for Lord Thornton to discover her madness. She needed to escape outdoors to feel the wind on her face, bury her hands in earth. At Elk Grove, working in the garden had always calmed her. Her surroundings might have changed, but nature remained the same. Catherine stood, pushing off from the table. Her chair screeched as it scraped across the parquet floor.
“I look forward to it,” she lied. “If it’s not any trouble, could I go walk about the garden?”
“As you wish, my lady. I’ll call Miss Larson to bring your coat.” Mrs. Morgan headed for the door.
Catherine heaved a sigh of relief.
Mrs. Morgan stopped on the threshold and turned to Catherine, her expression serious. “Be sure to stay away from the woods by the south end. It is wild, and people have been known to lose their way among the trees.”
The hairs on the back of Catherine’s neck stood on end. On their way to Thornwood, they’d ridden through dense forest. The entire village seemed to be shrouded in mist and trees. It was sensible advice for someone new here but the creeping feeling of dread coiled around her. She looked over her shoulder to make sure the woman in white wasn’t hovering around her once more.
Miss Larson brought Catherine a light blue coat, a straw bonnet with white trim, andbrown lace-up boots. Dressed for the outdoors, Catherine stepped out into the chilly morning air. Fog shrouded the landscape. A fountain burbled at the center of the circular drive, which led up to black iron gates and the village beyond. Dense forest peaked through the mist. It encircled Thornwood Abbey on all sides. Mrs. Morgan’s warning rang in her ears. If she stuck to the garden paths, she would be fine. A dirt path wrapped around the back of Thornwood Abbey, and she headed in that direction.
Dew clung to the lawn and soaked the hem of her skirt as she brushed against it. The air here in the country felt crisp and clean. Gravel crunched pleasantly beneath her boots. Flashes of green shrubbery peeked between veils of gray fog. Ash and oak trees lined the path, which led to a white Grecian style gazebo with marble benches to sit upon. Catherine brushed her hands against the cool stone. It kept winding upward and through a hedge maze. The acres that surrounded Thornwood Abbey were expansive, and she could see herself exploring for months or years and still not uncovering all of its secrets.
She passed by the hedge maze, promising herself to visit another day, and headed to a barren row of the orchard at the far end of a grassy field. In her favorite book, Lady of the Moors, Tristan, the novel’s hero, professed his love to Angelique in an orchard. Catherine strolled beneath the skeletal branches and grasped one with a single bud waiting to bloom. This small vessel brimmed with potential life, a flower, and later fruit. Right now, the garden slumbered, but this bud was a promise of spring. It had always been her favorite time of the year, nudging the plants to awaken, and seeing their petals and leaves unfurl to bask in the sunlight after the cold winter.
Catherine’s thoughts swirled with plans for plantings. Would it be too bold to ask Lord Thornton for a little patch of earth to call her own? There was so much here, and many parts had grown wild. Just in case, she hunted about for the perfect location, one which would get the right amount of sunlight and shade but also wouldn’t attract attention. What she liked most about gardening was the silence and solitude of it where she could be alone without fear of others.
As she wandered, Catherine came upon a patch of tangled vines a few meters from the path. The star-shaped leaves with dark green tips and pale green centers were like nothing she’d seen before. She went to investigate.
A breeze prickled the hairs on the back of her neck. Catherine looked up as the fog shifted, exposing a copse of tangled dark trees. Two dark, knotty oaks grew side by side, and their boughs entwined together as if they’d grown that way. Their branches fused together, and it was impossible to see where one began, and the other ended. The strange vine tangled between them. On closer inspection, she could see pinky-sized black thorns. She’d never seen anything quite like it.
A faint song drifted on the wind. Catherine strained her ears to hear it. It seemed to be coming from behind this thorny oak. She inched closer, careful not to scratch herself on the thorns. The unearthly song became clearer though the words were spoken in a language she did not know. The singer sounded as if they could be a man or a woman. Though she didn’t know the words, it beckoned to her. They wanted her to step through the doorway. Her eyes darted over the trees and vines. If she squinted, it nearly looked like a pair of doors. What a strange tree. Catherine extended a hand toward the twin oaks, her finger hovering over the point of a thorn.
“Be careful,” an amused male voice said.
